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Immigration bill faces tough path in full Senate

WASHINGTON -- As the Senate heads back into session Monday, it is poised to take up a sweeping immigration reform bill that would offer earned citizenship to many of the 11 million immigrants who entered the

Immigration bill faces tough path in full Senate

Comprehensive immigration reform legislation will be debated by the full Senate by June 10, and proponents are hoping to attract enough Republican votes to create a show of force to House GOP leaders.

Immigrants await their turn for green card and citizenship interviews at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Queens office on May 30 in New York City.(Photo: John Moore, Getty Images)

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Proponents hope to attract 70 votes in the Senate to force the House to act

WASHINGTON — As the Senate heads back into session Monday, it is poised to take up a sweeping immigration bill that would offer earned citizenship to many of the 11 million immigrants who entered the United States illegally before 2012.

Supporters of the bill crafted by the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" senators guided it to passage in the Senate Judiciary Committee last month while fending off amendments that would have broken apart their coalition of labor and business groups, Catholics and evangelical Christians, and law enforcement and civil rights' groups.

Now, proponents of the bill face an even tougher challenge: how to lure more Republicans to support the legislation without alienating Democrats and losing the support of key immigrant rights' groups.

"It's a balancing act," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert and professor of law at Cornell University Law School. "The Gang of Eight has done a great job so far of walking that tightrope. Now we'll see whether they can continue to do so on the Senate floor."

The Senate is expected to begin debating the bill by June 10. Supporters hope to pass it before the Fourth of July recess.

"The final bill won't be exactly what passed out of the committee," said Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who will manage the floor debate on the bill. "The most important thing is to have a path to citizenship for the most people possible in a way that ultimately benefits and strengthens the United States of America."

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who is one of four Gang of Eight Republicans along with fellow Arizona Sen. John McCain, said he is worried about whether the bill can be amended to pick up enough Republican votes to create a show of force to House GOP leaders. Supporters of the bill are hoping to attract about 70 votes from the 100-member Senate.

"We can pass this out of the Senate," Flake said. "The question is, can we get enough votes to convince the House to vote."

Flake said he expects amendments from Republicans on border security and on government benefits and tax breaks for immigrants who gain legal status.

"There is a lot of dissatisfaction among Republicans that the border stuff is not tough enough, that there are no real triggers," said Tamar Jacoby, president of ImmigrationWorks USA, a coalition of business groups. "There certainly are going to be people who are pushing for more teeth, different standards and meaningful triggers."

The bill requires a 90% effectiveness rate for security along the entire Southwest border and prevents undocumented immigrants who are granted provisional legal status from receiving any federal means-tested public benefits such as welfare or Medicaid.

But conservative critics don't like the fact that undocumented immigrants would gain temporary legal status before all of the border requirements have to be met. And some want to deny the newly legalized immigrants any federal, state or local aid or tax breaks, even when they earn green cards and become permanent legal residents.

"This is a tricky period," said Frank Sharry, America's Voice, an immigrant rights group that supports the reform bill. "If they (Gang of Eight senators) go too far in trying to placate Republicans and undermine the parts of the bill that brought the progressive coalition to the table, they could lose us."

Specifically, immigrant rights leaders say they don't want border security requirements that are so rigid they are impossible to meet. If those requirements are tied to citizenship, then millions of people would remain here with no hope of ever becoming citizens or even legal permanent residents, immigrant rights leaders say.

"We already have a path to legality in this bill that is quite narrow, quite hard and quite long," said Clarissa Martinez, director of civic engagement and immigration at the National Council of La Raza. "We are going to be vigilant about opposing any amendments that intend to make that path even harder because that might make citizenship unattainable."

Cutting off all federal aid to newly legalized citizens could have unintended consequences, such as denying them disaster aid in the event of a powerful tornado or hurricane, Martinez said.

"We just went through this horrific tornado in Oklahoma," Martinez said. "What happens if your house has been leveled, your job has been obliterated, one of your family members ends up in the hospital as the result of a tragic event? People need to be able to survive while they work and wait to become citizens."

Groups that oppose increased immigration say there is no way to salvage the bill and that conservatives should work to defeat it rather than amend it.

"If the bill were to be essentially torn up and replaced with one that required E-Verify and border security and an entry-exit visa system before legalization, it would be less bad, but the Gang of Eight couldn't support that," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. The center opposes increased immigration and is a strong supporter of mandatory E-Verify, the electronic federal database that allows employers to check whether new hires are legally eligible to work in the United States. Arizona law already requires employers to use the system.

Krikorian said it's possible that liberals could end up killing the bill if they offer a controversial amendment to allow gay Americans to bring in their foreign partners on family reunification visas.

"I could see Republicans voting for it as a poison pill kind of thing," he said. "But I doubt that (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid will let it go that far. I think the Democrats have essentially told the gay rights groups that they need to hold off for now."

Liberal Democrats also are expected to offer amendments that would continue to allow siblings and adult married children to immigrate to the U.S. on family reunification visas. Under the current bill, those family categories would be eliminated to allow for more employment-based visas sought by businesses and favored by many Republicans.

"What if your only family member is a sibling?" Martinez said. "We'd like to see more flexibility there before we do away with something that is tried and true and replace it with a new system."

While many Democrats favor changes to help gay couples and reunite all family members, they are not expected to vote against the bill if those amendments fail.

"They see the larger goal of passing immigration reform as more important," Yale-Loehr said.

Jacoby said she doesn't think the bill will drastically change on the Senate floor, even though she and other business advocates would like to see an increase in the number of visas made available to lower-skilled workers. She cited the influence of the labor giant AFL-CIO, which seeks to protect American workers.

"There will be some drama, but I think a lot of it is locked in by the Gang of Eight," said Jacoby, whose organization is a national coalition of small- and medium-size-business owners that pushes for immigration reforms to benefit employers. "They have a pretty protective approach, the Gang of Eight does, and they feel that if they change any of the labor stuff, the AFL will bolt, and that basically gives the AFL a trump card."

The lobbyist for NumbersUSA, which opposes the bill, said she believes it will be defeated. The group is running TV ads nationwide saying the legislation would hurt U.S. citizens and legal residents at a time when 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed.

"I think the bill is in serious trouble," said Rosemary Jenks, government relations director for NumbersUSA, which opposes increased immigration. "I don't think they have the 60 votes (needed to fend off a conservative filibuster). They are not going to get all 55 Democrats, especially the ones from red states. And I don't see them getting enough Republicans to make it to 60."

But supporters of the bill say they don't see the strong anti-immigrant sentiment that they saw in 2007, when the last attempt at an immigration overhaul failed.

"This is totally different," said Jeff Hauser, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO, which is part of the coalition supporting the bill. "It's not just that Latino and pro-immigration groups are stronger, there's just nothing going on on the other side. We're not seeing the big anti-immigration protests that we saw before."

Leahy said both sides realize that Americans are fed up with the current system.

"The American people don't believe the status quo is working," he said. "If senators are serious about fixing the problem, this bill will pass."